Today in physical therapy my therapist was sharing with me a story that demonstrated the power of emotion and its impact on our life.
The story was about a man who was out in the wilderness. He felt a stick poke him in the leg but thought little of it and continued on his walk. After a few hours he began to feel much pain and his leg swelled up dramatically.
He was rushed to the hospital and discovered he had been bitten by a venomous snake. He could have died from this bite, it was a frightening experience.
At a later time that same man was again in the forest, he felt a bite, falling to the ground in pain and terrified his mind recalled the last time he had been bitten by a dangerous snake. However, this time there was no snake, what he felt was the poke of a stick.
This is an excellent example of the workings of the brain concerning our experiences in life. Our brain hangs onto the memories of things from the past often reliving them as if they are happening all over again, when sometimes they are not.
I recall a time when I was having a lovely time at the beach with my husband. We were on the boardwalk passing in front of stores window shopping. As I peered into a window I saw a vase exactly like a vase my mother had in our home when I was growing up.
Instantly feelings of sadness rolled over me at the first glance of that vase. I looked at my husband astonished and explained to him what was happening. There was no reason to feel sad or unhappy, everything that happened that day had been happy. A single vase catapulted me into a time many years ago that no longer existed.
The memories of home life were filled with sadness and depression. At the sight of that vase those feelings returned even though no thoughts of those times were present. My brain took me back to the time of sadness without any previous specific events in my conscious memory, about those sad times. Our family was one in which there was little love displayed. Mostly everyone lived life to "one up" everyone else in the house without concern about anyone else. Any attempts to bring love and empathy to the family was met with mocking, as though the one who displayed love and kindness was strange or weird.
I am convinced that the devil touches our minds in spots of bad memories to debilitate us, leaving us weak and impotent to carry on in the present. In my case he wanted to make me sad by bringing back a "feeling" of something that no longer existed.
I am also convinced that false memory causes siblings and other family members to hold things against one another that were not accurate. If a parent trains a child to despise another sibling, all the child remembers is that they don't like that child, there are no other specific memories that bring about the contempt, only the memory that Mom/Dad didn't like that child.
When there is a "golden" child in the family and a "scapegoat" child, the golden child will operate from an attitude of superiority not because of their accomplishments but because they were led to believe they were superior by the parents.
The same is true of the scapegoat child. The parents assigned the role of inept and unworthy of love to the scapegoated child causing everyone else in the family to treat this person the same way they saw the parents treating them. Even causing doubt in the scapegoated child that they were even worthy of love.
There is an old saying; "more is caught than taught." When a parent treats someone as less than worthy of love and kindness, all those in the family will follow the lead of that parent. They will believe something is wrong with that person without any evidence, except the way their parent treats that person.
We love our parents so it follows that if our parents were treating someone badly they must have had a good reason. We see this all the time in society and in politics. The one who questions what is going on in the house and wants something better will be seen as a trouble maker worthy of greater contempt.
We are seeing right now in this monstrous demonstration of foolishness through the impeachment hearings. Those in power have no good reason anyone can see to come against our president but they keep making generalized statements without any evidence causing non-thinking people to think something is wrong.
This dynamic happens often in our culture, churches and families. Those who want power and prestige for themselves will invent things to be wrong when they sense they are losing power and control over others.
The narcissist will attempt to destroy the reputation of the scapegoated family member because they cannot control them. We see this in churches when a false doctrine of men controlling people results in cult like thinking. Rather than speaking truth to influence people they rage, dominate and mock to control through intimidation. They are not interested in the spiritual well being of anyone, they are only interested in being superior and controlling those who disagree with them. They judge many things they h ave no business judging. Sin should always be judged as sin, but these people will judge things as sin when they are not, they are merely disagreements on questionable matters.
If they cannot force someone to bow to their false doctrines they will attempt to turn others against the one who walks in truth. This has been the tactic of the devil since the beginning. He could not control God so He attempted to turn Eve from God to the lies of the devil. Then Eve was able to influence her husband to disobey God too.
Why do people disobey God? Most generally it begins with a desire for something, then culminates in rationalization to make their actions seem right. In short, God was wrong and the men were right, in the eyes of those who justify sinful behavior through their own demented thinking.
Proverbs 12:15-16 "15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. 16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.…"
It is not possible to change the mind of another person, we can only bring truth. Whatever their reaction to truth will show us their heart. If they rage in anger at the hearing of truth, refuse to consider it or discuss it, then we know there is a sinful prideful heart. If they receive it with joy desiring to discuss it for clarification then we have met a person who loves to learn truth to please God.
Those who love God want to be open to correction and learning. However, the man who is full of their own pride and resistant to God will also be resistant to truth.
Proverbs 12:14-16 "…14 By fruitful speech a man will be filled with good things, and the work of a man’s hands will reward him. 15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. 16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.…"
God instructs us to remove ourselves from fools, there is no convincing them of their sin, in fact any challenge to seek righteousness will be met with rage.
We must not allow the influences of past human relationships or our own minds to control our choices. We must seek God, allowing His truth and His Holy Spirit to determine our way.
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